Thousands of years ago in the fantasy world of Auldrant, the Songstress Yulia Jue used her powers to read the memories of the planet itself. She detailed her findings in a vast prophecy known as the Score, which promised unlimited prosperity and wealth for the entire world at the end. In the centuries since then, two great nations known as the Kingdom of Kimlasca-Lanvaldear and the Malkuth Empire have fought over the scattered Fonstones upon which the Score is written. Between them lies the Order of Lorelei, a religious order dedicated to the safekeeping of the Score, who act as a neutral arbitrator.

His mundane existence changes dramatically when mysterious White Mage Tear Grants breaks into Luke's manor with the aim of killing his swordmaster, her brother Van Grants. Upon touching Luke, she and Luke are accidentally teleported halfway around the world, landing right in the middle of Malkuth. Together, they try to return Luke home while gradually unravelling the secrets behind his status as The Chosen One of legend.

The game has an Animated Adaptation produced by Sunrise. The first episode aired on October 3, 2008 on TOKYO MX; in addition, another channel had an hour long special the following day, showing both the first and second episode. The anime adaptation was released on October 11, 2011 by Bandai Entertainment in North America, albeit sub-only, even though the video game has an English dub.

The game was originally released for the PS2, and a port for the Nintendo 3DS was released internationally. It was released in Europe on November 25th, 2011, marking the first time the Old Continent gets to officially play it. The 3DS version was released in North America on February 14th, 2012.

Tropes Include:

Aborted Arc: Tear "kidnapping" Luke is never fully explored in regards to consequences, and neither is her loyalty to Mohs despite his hands in the problems they face. Also, Mohs deliberate sends her to Akzeriuth, with the implication he knew there was no Seventh Fonstone and he just wanted her dead due to her actions nearly ruining his plans with Van but this is never brought up ever again, even in subsequent arcs when Mohs continues to be an enemy to the group.

Accidental Kidnapping: The plot kicks off when Tear and Luke inadvertently teleport halfway across the world, placing Tear as a "kidnapper" by the view of those back home.

Adaptation Explanation Extrication: The anime suffers a lot from this. Some situations are not properly foreshadowed or even explained, so they come completely out of nowhere and/or don't make any sense to people not familiar with the video game. Case in point: It's never explained why Ion dies if he reads the Planet Score. He just does. In the game, this was explained properly, especially in skits.

Another example: After the first battle against Van, Jade and Guy say that Luke knows how to use his hyperresonance, something that was never brought up until that moment. Guy just makes a brief Hand Wave, saying that "he's being practicing in secret". In the game, this was explained in a whole sub-plot in which Tear teaches Luke how to control his power, we learn Tear's past as Legretta's pupil (another sub-plot barely shown in the anime), and she and Luke grow closer (making their romance more believable).

Adults Are Useless / Competence Zone: Averted by Jade, who is twice the age of the rest of the cast but is often complimented on his ability to keep up with the younger heroes. Lampshaded by his occasional comments about how his joints ache in his "old age" (he's 35), usually giving him an excuse to get out of manual labor (IE crate-moving puzzles; ironically, when he does have to push a crate around, he does so with one hand, the other remaining in his pocket).

Aerith and Bob: There are names like Luke, Natalia, Jade, Guy and Anise alongside monikers like Mystearica (Tear for short), Gailardia Galan Gardios (Guy for short), and Vandesdelca (Van for short).

A little less tropey once it's revealed that those three 'Aerith' examples are all from the same now-destroyed nation.

An Aesop: People can change, not only on an individual level (e.g. Luke), but the ultimate conflict between the heroes and the Big Bad is over whether society can adapt to a world without the score or whether it is doomed to fall back into its previous ways.

Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Done interestingly near the start of the game, when Jade, an older and far more experienced character, kneels down before Luke, who technically outranks him socially, in order to ask for help with accomplishing his mission to reach the king of Kimlasca. Luke's immaturity in even asking this of him, and Jade's graceful acquiescence, is what allows Jade to keep his dignity in this situation, and the fact that he's willing to go so far underscores just how important their mission really is.

Akashic Records: The Score, which predicts everything from national histories to what an individual person is going to do that day. Additionally, Sync has a Mystic Arte called Akashic Torment* Which can be seen as foreshadowing that he's a failed clone of Ion, and was likely intended to read the Score in his place..

The Liger Queen you kill in the beginning of the game. Only because of the required cute creature in your party burning part of the forest down do you even have a reason for killing her. She's also Arietta's "mother" You Bastard.

Arietta. What makes her death especially tragic is how...sudden it is. All the other God Generals the party kills are at least able to give a moving Final Speech before succumbing to their wounds. Arietta, however, barely even has time to form a single sentence before dying.

She's also the first human boss you actually kill, not counting battles that end with someone falling to their "deaths" only to turn up alive later. And she's a little girl. And her desire for revenge is completely justified by this point.

Largo. He dies after discovering his daughter is still alive, but is in fact an enemy princess.

The older girls in the Order, who did their best to make Anise's life miserable, mocked her parentage, and insisted she was incapable of being a good Fon Master guardian.

Happens to Van and Tear while they are watchers in the Qliphoth. The other soldiers were jealous of them because they came from the Outer Lands and are descendants of Yulia.

All Your Powers Combined: Nebilim. She has the best Strike and Fonic Artes in the entire game. She also has Mystic Artes like Rending Saber, Mystic Cage, Indignation, Innocent Shine, and Fortune's Arc.

Allergic to Love: Guy is afraid of women, to be specific, although that doesn't stop him from hitting on them and then running the hell away. It's also suggested that he doesn't entirely know that he's turning women on, as seen when he compliments Tear on her appearance.

Anime Theme Song: "Karma" by Bump of Chicken — the vocals were removed in the English localization. It was even recycled for the animated adaptation.

Anti-Frustration Features: A few parts, the plot demands you to go to a town that's half way across the map. The game gives you an option to immediately warp there if you want to.

During the stealth section, you have to sneak the party past a large regiment of guards. If you get caught enough times, the game will give you the option of just brute-forcing your way through by fighting the guards in normal battles.

You get a fast travel ability right as the plot starts taking you to various known locations at a rapid pace.

Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You only fight with four characters, while you have a total of six; complete with Hand Wave as to what the other characters are doing while your main party is fighting.

Arc Number: Everything seems to come in sevens: seven fonons, seven fonstones, seven fonic hymns, seven years since Luke lost his memories, seven Ion replicas, seven playable characters (though that one might be coincidence) and various other examples.

Artificial Brilliance: The AI can actually use items themselves. Natalia is often seen as wasteful, but her AI does seem to know never to touch the expensive or rare items. This veers a bit into Artificial Stupidity in that the AI will ask to use an Apple Gel when a Lemon Gel would be better,

Artificial Stupidity: Guy has an ability called "Center" that heals him a good amount. His AI almost never uses it if he needs it - even if he's the only one taking damage or has a chance.

Spinoza, after the death of his colleagues due to his betrayal. His friends from Class I also offer their lives to delay Van in order to atone for his betrayal.

Mieu is also an atoner since he's been exiled from his village because of his actions. He is just a small child, but his playing around lead to a horrible fire that killed several of his kind and started a war with another species that is now dominating and terrorizing his people.

Awesome, but Impractical: Luke's, Guy's, and Anise's second level Mystic Artes, which become available in a New Game+. They are a pain in the ass to learn how to use, and either require a particularly unfavorable HP level to activate or have a high cost associated with them (-20,000 gald for Anise). Also, Luke and Anise's only be used once per battle.

The extensions to Final Fury (Dying Moon) and Radiant Howl (Ion, which can only be used if Ion is with the group) add extra damage, can be used an unlimited number of times, AND count as two separate Mystic Artes (meaning more GRADE), but at the cost of your spellcasters being unable to cast. This means Jade and Tear cannot use their Mystic Artes until someone else uses one with no extension, and nobody can cast a fonic arte. There is also a risk that Anise's can lock up the game (if there are no sound effects for Dying Moon, your game will freeze).

Tear's second Mystic Arte, Fortune's Arc, also follows the trope (being hard to unlock), while Jade's Indignation averts it (as his AI can unlock it easily), though neither have high costs to use (100 TP); both require certain artes to be used a certain number of times (Thunder Lance 200 times, all Fonic Artes 50 times minimum +Judgement being the spell used to start the Mystic Arte). It should note that Indignation CAN be cast after Ion or Dying Moon (or Fortune's Arc extension), as it doesn't require a fonic arte to cast. Both can only be used once, however. Fortune's Arc also has an extension, which deals extra damage and gives status buffers.

Because Destiny Says So: Holy crap, does it ever. Why don't the people of Auldrant do anything when something bad happens? Because the Score predicted it, so there's no point meddling. Why does Grand Maestro Mohs want to start a war between the two major superpowers of the world? Because the Score said it would happen. Why doesn't Tear's uncle think that a city is going to fall? The Score didn't say it would, so physics be damned, he's not even going to go check. NPCs admit to deciding what to have for dinner based entirely on the Score. Both the heroes and the villains start to see all of the reliance on the Score as ridiculous.

Bigger Bad: The original Ion. He's was Van's partner in his plan to replicate the world, and he may even have been the one who came up with the plan to replicate the world in the first place. Even if he wasn't, he definitely supported it, and promoted Van to Commandant in order for him to have the political and military power needed to carry the plan out after his (Ion's) death.

Bilingual Bonus: Of a sort. The Fonic Language, if you can learn to read it, will provide you with a lot of these, usually in the form of Shout Outs to other Tales games.

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Anise. Sugary sweet on the outside, utterly cynical on the inside, and she tends to show this side more around people she doesn't need to impress (for example, her battle taunts are considerably more vulgar when Luke and Jade aren't in the party). Mind you, she's not all that bad on the inside when the chips are down, being ultimately something of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. She is also The Mole working for Grand Maestro Mohs and has been giving him information about Ion and the team since day one.

Later revelations reveal Guy is this more downplayed in the present, but in the past he was obsessed with Revenge to the point of planning on killing Luke.

Bittersweet Ending: Depending on who the red haired person at the end is, Tear or Natalia will be very sad.

Blade on a Stick: Jade uses a spear and variations thereof as his primary weapon. Also, in the anime, it's shown that the tip of Tear's staff is sharp enough to pierce flesh.

Blaming the Railroaded Player Character: Luke spends the first portion of the game being a whiny, self-absorbed burden on the party (even if he does hold his own in battle). When his actions result in what amounts to an entire town being massacred, he's uniformly blamed by his party members, and continues to insist that it wasn't his fault (which is technically true as he was the "gun" in this situation). To be fair, it kind of is his fault. But to be fairer, there's no other way things could have possibly gone for the player or, for that matter, for Luke as no one gave him a good enough reason to avoid it (see Broken Aesop for details).

Book Ends: Luke's(?) journey begins and ends in Tataroo Valley at night.

Break the Haughty: Pretty much everything that happens to Luke in the first half of the game; though it's worthwhile to note it's a serious deconstruction. Also, for Natalia, she subdues a bit when she joins the party, realizing quickly that fighting in real life is much different from practice. The real kick for her, though, is when she discovers she's not really a princess, and her real father is one of the God-Generals.

Broken Aesop: In the events leading up to Akzeriuth, the party, especially Tear, warn Luke that he needs to think for himself and not blindly rush into things solely on others' authority. Except they give no reason why he should distrust Van other than because they say so despite having plenty of time to tell him the truth.

Cain and Abel: Tear and Van. The game repeatedly jumps back and forth on which is which before settling on Tear as Abel and Van as Cain.

The Call Has Bad Reception: After completing the Absorbtion Gate, Lorelei warns Luke and Asch that Van survived and is trying to imprison it. The problem? Lorelei used the ancient Ispanian translation of Van's name, "The one who would seize glory". If it had just used his normal name, Luke and the party could have started to head out and foil his schemes a whole month earlier.

Calling Your Attacks: Everyone in the main party and Quirky Miniboss Squad does this with their artes. Luke, Guy, and Asch will yell out a phrase to accompany their Field of Fonons Artes, e.g. "Blade reveal your fury! Dragon Tempest!"

Cannot Spit It Out: Luke and Tear. This goes on for about a third of the entire game. The rest of the party easily knows that they have romantic feelings for each other, but Luke can't spit it out because, he's seven years old and his fonons are seperating, so, by Luke's logic, why tell her how he feels when she'll just be brokenhearted when he disappears, and Tear can't spit it out because she's textbook kuudere.

Luke: "Shut up!" and "What a pain!" (dropped after Akzeriuth) and "Sorry" after the Wham Episode

Tear: "You idiot" (saved specially for Luke)

Jade: "My, my!"

Anise: "Booo!" (or in Japanese "Buu buu!")

Natalia: "Oh, my!"

Mieu: "Master!"

Chance Meeting Between Antagonists:There is a scene where the protagonists are going to visit a scholar who have knowledge pertinent to their quest. When they arrive, the Big Bad is already there, reading up about the same subject. The two of them have a bit of a row, but out of respect for the scholar (an old friend of his), the Big Bad leaves without anything coming of it.

Changeling Tale: A variation as the original Luke fon Fabre went through this the backstory, being replaced by a replica (The Hero and Luke followed from the start), and losing his original identity in the process. He never regains it and, despite Luke trying many times to give him back his family and position in life, he remains Asch throughout.

Chekhov's Gunman: The Dark Wings are mentioned near the very beginning of the game and finally show up a while after.

Childhood Marriage Promise: Natalia and Luke made one, which became one of the defining points in Natalia's life as it contained the ideals to which they would strive to as future monarchs. Luke doesn't remember making it, so Natalia reminds him about it at every opportunity and dreams about how romantic it would be if his first recalled memory was of the promise. It's revealed that she really made the promise with Asch, which leads to much guilt on Natalia's part for forcing her dreams onto Luke, and forms the basis for her own personal struggle to differentiate Luke and Asch.

Child Soldiers: Common due to Improbable Age; Anise is thirteen but already a Fon Master Guardian, while Tear is sixteen and Asch is seventeen. The replicas that show up during the third arc deserve special mention as they are at best a few days old when they fight the team.

Interestingly enough, all Child Soldiers are part of the Oracle Knights, and it's implied neither Kimlasca or Malkuth would put any one under the age of majority in a dangerous situation or a potentially dangerous post.

The Chosen One: Luke. But it's not as simple as that. Asch was the original Chosen One, and Luke was created as a mere decoy. But both Luke and Asch's individual actions coincide with those of The Chosen One, as predicted in the Score. The simplest explanation is that they are both "The Chosen One".

Colonel Badass: Jade. He's known as "The Necromancer," and people from both sides rightly fear him.

Combat Medic: Both Natalia and Tear can alternate as a long/mid distance fighter or the healer, depending on which kind of healing you prefer (Gradual area-of-effect spells from Tear, or concentrated single-target artes by Natalia)

Combination Attack: the "Field of Fonons" thing. Whenever a character uses [Technique A] which is (say) Fire-elemental, it leaves a circle on the battlefield charged with Fire. Stand in that circle and use [Technique B], and [Technique B] will turn into something new (and generally Fire-elemental).

Compressed Adaptation: This is most notable in the CD dramas, though the manga suffers from this as well. Many things are left out of the CD dramas, including the Albiore, an important vehicle that you spend several quests and subquests in the game acquiring, reacquiring, and powering up. Also left out of the dramas is Mieu, though some would say that's a good thing.

Conditioned to Accept Horror: Tales of the Abyss not only has Ion go to his death with a smile because he can't grasp that his individual life has any meaning besides what he can do with it. Instead of resenting it, he is honestly happy that betraying him and causing his death helped The Mole. While he's an extreme example, the entire population of Auldrant qualifies.

Luke's own father and uncle are willing to send him to die both [to set off a war they'll win and because the Score says so: it's not until fairly late in the game that they seem to realize that this was a cruel thing to do to Luke and Natalia and it would have been not just ok, but good for them to not want to do it.

Grand Maestro Mohs sees nothing wrong with a genocidal war, since the Score was made to bring prosperity to Auldrant, so it's obviously for the best. He actually doesn't even qualify as a Well-Intentioned Extremist on Auldrant. His is the moderate faction, containing the normal, sensible members of the Order who just want the best for Auldrant, like Tear.

Almost everyone reacts with shock and horror to the idea of revealing a Score of death, especially if doing so would save someone's life and go against the Score.

The Big Bad. When Luke asks him if he cares about Luke at all other than as a living weapon he honestly doesn't understand the question, mistaking it for an existential one. The Big Bad was brought into the world as a Laser-Guided Tykebomb, in accordance with the Score with parents who were aware of this the entire time and only thought about him in terms of that function just like how he regards Luke. Oh, and as a babysitter for their 'real' child. The people who used him to destroy his homeland and as an excuse for performing deadly experiments on civilians who were going to die anyway considered themselves fully justified, between the Score and using him as a scapegoat. It was okay to hook him into a machine and destroy Hod for the greater good, and he's doing this to allow humanity to survive the Scored end of the world.

The Start of Darkness for most of the loyal god-generals was when they ran into a horror that they could not accept. Largo's daughter was kidnapped, causing his wife to kill herself and he could not have justice. Legretta suddenly fell in love with someone she went after in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and the knowledge that this was likely Scoredmakes her skin crawl. Sync, like Ion believes that he can't have value other than as a tool and hates this.

Convection Shmonvection: Played straight, and lampshaded in a skit. (See Exposed to the Elements, further below.) Heck, even touching the magma isn't that bad. The characters can be completely submerged in magma with only a couple hit points missing to show for it.

Corrupt Church: It gets better as the story goes on. Only the actions of Grand Masetro Mohs fits into this category.

Cosmic Deadline: Funny how you pretty much do nothing different in fights with the Big Bad, and he finally decides to die for good after roughly 60 hours.

Crapsaccharine World: Auldrant seriously is one hell of a world as you progress throughout Tales of the Abyss. After the peace of Engeve, you come to learn that an entire nation of people were literally sacrificed to appease an ancient prophecy, the world itself hangs on nothing more than energy pillars to escape the hellish sea of poison and mud that lies below its true surface, you experience the first hand hardships and horrors of war, both gameplay wise AND even storywise, and amongst all of the political and social hardships and issues that plague the world, EVERYONE on this world STILL has to deal with the bloodthirsty monsters and thugs that lurk outside every hamlet. Thankfully, the game helps uplift things to show that it can be a World Half Full.

Jade abused harmless animals and had a rather warped view of death and killing when he was only a kid. That's not to mention his Creepy Monotone and overall fonic genius, but he's grown out of it.

Original Ion, in the manga. Kills what amounts to a newborn baby on page 9.

Crutch Character: Jade, before he conveniently has his powers sealed to the same level as the other party members. And slowly works through said seal, conveniently gaining power at the same rate as everyone else.

Cryptic Conversation: A subversion. The conversations with Lorelei, and the Score itself, are considered cryptic and become hard to understand not because they're metaphorical or mystical but because people expect them to be. 'Light of the Sacred Flame' is not a metaphor, it's a translation out of the language the Score was spoken in of Luke fon Fabre. Miner's City is also not a metaphor or poetic description of Akzeriuth: the city didn't have a name when Yulia read the Score because it hadn't been built yet, so Lorelei just called it what it was. Because of this, the characters seem to assume that Scion of Lorelei is another metaphor or that Lorelei is saying something mystical when he tries to explain to Luke that the reason Lorelei is speaking to him is that they're one and the same entity, and Luke needs to know certain things to save them both.

Cutscene Power to the Max: ... Tear can put an entire house to sleep, jump off a roof, and nearly kill someone without breaking a sweat. Though in another cutscene near the end of the game, she strains herself heavily just putting eight people to sleep, claiming that she never put that many people to sleep before. While it may be arguable that she only attacked the people that were currently in the courtyard of Fabre mansion at the start of the game (and only made Luke, Van and Guy kinda groggy, at that), it's somewhat unlikely that every knight in Natalia's palace was pretending to be asleep, though they'd probably do it if it meant that Natalia would be safe. It's worth noting that Tear was already feeling weak from the miasma before she put that band of replicas to sleep.

Cutting the Knot: Reiner, Dist's subordinate, has the flight stone, and says he can't give it to anyone, even the Fon Master. Luke tries to talk him into helping them, but Tear then uses a fonic hymn and puts Reiner to sleep, stealing the stone in the process.

Anise, to a degree, who has the most dark-based magics of the playable characters.

Dark Reprise: Van has two leitmotifs: The first, titled "Van", is a majestic, heroic-sounding melody. The second, titled "Van — Truth", which plays when he shows his true colors at Akzeriuth, is a variation of the first melody, which is played in a minor key and which sounds more menacing.

Death Seeker: Interestingly, there are snake-like enemy mooks that are actually called "Deathseekers".

Although it's not as big as the game's Deconstructor Fleet attitude towards destiny tropes, the game still takes a stab at the Marty Stu cliche through Jade by showing just how dangerous a Marty Stu-type character would be. When it comes to fonic artes and science, nobody can match Jade. Period. He created the first replica at an improbable age (nine!) and mastered artes adults found difficult without any hassle. However, while brilliant, he's also a complete sociopath with no emotional attachment to the world. Jade reflects on this later in the game when he realises that, despite having the most incredible mind in the world, he considers his lack of consideration nothing short of inhuman and comes to believe that his intellect has been nothing but a blight on the planet. This culminates in him expressing a wish to go back in time and kill himself as an infant.

The game has an interesting take on the Kid Hero, seeing as Luke is actually chronologically 7 years old despite looking like a young adult.

Importantly, it takes the nature of the setting, and shows just what kind of society would evolve due to the fact that a comprehensive prophecy that is always right exists, completely revolves around it, and takes it very close to its horrifyingly logical conclusion.

Disc-One Final Dungeon: The Absorbtion Gate takes place about 3/4 through the game, but if you experience the build up and the seemingly resolution of the entire plotline up to facing the Big Bad, not to mention the kickass music when you fight him, it's a safe bet to say the developers wanted players to think this was the last dungeon.

Disc-One Nuke: By exploiting a Good Bad Bug, it's possible to get the Vorpal Sword, a near-endgame level weapon for Luke and Guy, the first time you can run around on the world map.

By exploiting the trade item system correctly, the player can get very powerful weapons for all of the party much sooner than that they would otherwise, making much of the first half of the game or so a joke, including beating the Hopeless Boss Fight against Asch the first time without hardly trying.

After you fight the Big Bad the first time, he throws himself off the ledge and into the planet's core. Everyone thinks he died, and he himself was expecting to die, but he actually survives. When he dies for real, you kill him.

The Ditz: While not being a full blown example like Colette Brunel, Natalia has her moments of profound stupidity. While in the Shurrey Hill Sephiroth, Anise convinces Natalia that Van'sbeard and eyebrows give him special powers. In a skit in Daath after the party has spent significant time in a desert region, everyone remarks about how sweaty they are. Instead of being worried about whether or not she may actually be a real princess, Natalia is more concerned about smelling bad.

Don't You Dare Pity Me!: During the Contamination Sidequest, Dist feels sorry for Jade and tries to make him feel better with amounts to a platitude since Luke is doomed to become Deader Than Dead and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Jade is unamused, both since Asch having Luke's memories won't make him Luke any more than the Nebilim replica containing Professor Nebilim's memories made her Professor Nebilim and when Dist pities you, that's when you know you've really hit rock bottom.

Doomed Hometown: Inverted: Luke's hometown isn't destroyed, the Big Bad's is, and it's one of the reasons he hates the Score.

Dying Moment of Awesome: You have to admit how cool it was how Asch died. Unarmed at first, he manages to fight off dozens of soldiers but then ends up stabbed in the back. The sword goes through him, another three swords get stabbed through his body. He kills the last remaining soldiers, remains standing and pulls one of the swords out before his strength leaves him and he falls to the ground and tells Luke that it's all up to him as he gives the last of his power to him.

The Empire: Averted, but Mohs tries to convince King Ingobert VI of Kimlasca that Malkuth is this and is trying to mobilize forces to invade Kimlasca, only for the heroes, who had actually seen the country with their own eyes, met a colonel in its military, and visited the locations supposedly gathering forces, to run into the throne room and inform the king of the truth even taking the colonel in question, Jade Curtiss, along with them.

The Evils of Free Will: A war that was destroying the world was stopped by the creation of the Score which set the future in stone and is repeatedly stated to make individual choices mean absolutely nothing. Since the Score is the optimal future, the one that creates the most happiness and prosperity trying to fight it even to save someone's life by telling them their Death Score is considered an evil action. Of course, it's all futile anyway, since replicas are the only ones with free will. If the Score is the best future, then entities that have no place in that future must be evil, or at the best 'not good.' This explains Mohs' opinion of them.

False Flag Operation: Attempted by Grand Maestro Mohs and Van, using replicas to dress as Malkuth soldiers. It's ultimately subverted in that their intended target doesn't fall for it. ( Natalia does. But she at least has enough common sense to ask the other side about the attack before pushing the big red "WAR" button. Not to mention, she agrees with the rest of the party that the tactics used by the troops — suicide bombings — are things that no sane army would ever conceive of, let alone actually do.)

There's also the Isle of Feres. Lampshaded as "physically impossible" by Jade.

Four Is Death:By the end of the game only Legretta, Largo, Sync, and Arietta are loyal to Van as Asch has sided with the main party and Dist only became a God-General to revive Nebilim.

Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Deconstructed with Jade Curtiss and twinned with Reluctant Psycho. He doesn't necessarily want to be a sociopath but he just can't fight the fact that he simply doesn't understand the value of human life.

Friendly Enemy: More or less everyone but Mohs and Asch. Almost everybody has had professional relationships in the same military before the fighting starts, and the lack of real animosity is palpable.

Friendly Fireproof: Annoyingly hand waved by Jade, who says at one point that he can't use artes to fight back, because there were too many civilians around without friend-or-foe markings.

It might still be hand waving, but a book in Grand Chokmah explains 'marking' and how it pertains to preventing friendly fire. It's better than no explanation, at least.

The short version is: a special fonic verse is inscribed into some of an ally's fon slots (more or less magic chakra points). These marks prevent wide-range magic cast by the user from unintentionally harming allies, and healing magic from unintentionally helping enemies.

"Funny Aneurysm" Moment: Both in-universe and out of universe, there's Guy's fear of women. It's played for laughs, up until it's revealed what caused it. Almost everyone in the party felt horrible for having made fun of him for it, and it's probably safe to say that a lot of fans instantly felt bad for laughing at it.

Gainax Ending: Wait, so, um...Why are Luke and Asch shining like that? What, are they melding or something? Why did the screen go completely white? Why did Asch's hand just twitch? Why are the credits rolling right now without answering those questions?! Oh, good, there's a after-credits stinger. And he's back! Wait, his hair is long again. But his sword's sheath is affixed similarly to Luke's. But his hair is long and Tear seems more surprised than relieved and "I promised someone" could refer to either Tear or Natalia, not to mention that Jade's the only one who would know about the Big Bang Effect (the reason it would be Asch instead of Luke) and he looks like someone's killed his puppy—GAAAAAHHH. Some people think it's obviously Luke, some people think it's obviously Asch, and there's a stack of evidence on both sides. But for those who don't think there's any reason for a controversy to exist, Word of God says that you're SUPPOSED to decide what the ending means for yourself. Who would say that about anything if there were an obvious, straightforward answer?

Gainaxing: Have Tear as the displayed character and start running. Also, a number of cutscenes.

Gameplay and Story Integration: Early in the game in a scene that's permanently missable, someone will tell you that fonic artes are rather difficult to use and learn - and there are a surprisingly few amount of enemies that can use fonic artes. Even when you come to the ones using higher level fonic artes, they specialize in one element.

Luke has an extention to his Radiant Howl Mystic Arte where Ion uses his Daathic Fonic Arte on the enemy. This can only be used when Ion is traveling with your party.

Zig-zagged with Tear's fonic hymns. (See below) When they play it straight, Tear will learn a fonic arte, and will then sing it when she uses it in battle.

Gender-Blender Name: Jade. Peony. Saphir... Also Lorelei, who is given a rather deep and masculine voice.

Generation Xerox: A Laser-Guided Tykebombborn specifically for the purpose of destroying a city ends up defying the Score in order to save the world from utter destruction, gathering a group of allies, one of whom was originally out to kill him and another of which betrays him. Also, his friend Ion dies and he's helpless to save him. There are several more ways in which Van and Luke fit this trope.

The Ghost: In Daath, the player can find a book listing all of the higher-ups of the Order and Oracle Knights. Of all the names, one of them, 6th Division Commander Cantabile, is never mentioned or seen anywhere in the game (though she does eventually make an appearance in Tales Of Fandom vol. 2, as part of Tear's backstory.)

Gilded Cage: The Fabre Manor is this to Luke; he hasn't been allowed to leave it since his kidnapping and Trauma-Induced Amnesia to protect him, leaving him with only memories of living there. He's so sheltered that not only does he not have basic knowledge of things like stores, he does not know what the city he lives in looks like. This is a plot point: Luke hates it so much that his desire to be free is what drives his actions as Ambassador and give the Big Bad a means to thoroughly manipulate him.

Goggles Do Something Unusual: Jade's glasses don't do anything to correct his vision (which is, in fact, above average). Instead, his eyes are where his ability to use magic is concentrated, and the glasses act as a Power Limiter.

Gold Digger: Anise. Justified in that she is trying to shovel her parents out of debt. Nonetheless, it's slightly squicky to see this thirteen-year-old girl trying to twine herself around Luke. Or, say, Peony, who is thirty-six.

The Squick isn't as strong if you take Luke's age at face value (17). However, it's worse if you go by his real age (7).

God Is Good: Very much so. Lorelei is a benevolent deity that wants humanity to succeed. Unlike most holy beings in media, he is all but ecstatic when he is made irrelevant, as Luke defying the Score means that humans are finally independent and don't need him anymore.

Good Is Not Nice: Asch is trying to accomplish the same thing you are, to stop Van from destroying the world and replacing it with a Replica world, but that sure doesn't stop Asch from passionately hating Luke and threatening to kill him.

Graceful Loser: Largo, his last words are praising Natalia for landing the killing blow so effectively, giving Luke some advice and then saying goodbye to Natalia, who is his daughter.

Van, oddly enough, he says goodbye to Tear, tells Luke not to call him master and asks his subordinates to forgive him as he dies for good.

Greater-Scope Villain: The Miasma. Van may be the Big Bad of the story responsible for most of the events, but he bears no ill will towards the party. Their mutual enemy is the Miasma that is consuming the world and fated to destroy it. Granted, the Miasma is a

Guns Are Worthless: It's hilarious to see her firing both guns and realize they can't hit outside of the muzzle flash.

Harder Than Hard: Unknown. All enemies stats are increased fourfold compared to what they were on Normal. Mystic Artes can and will destroy you. Bosses have such incredibly high defense that you're essentially forced to spend millions of Gald on a potential Game-Breaker sword for Luke and Guy in Chesedonia if you want to do more than one damage per hit when said bosses easily have over 70k HP even in the first chapter of the game.

The US version reduced the multiplier of Unknown difficulty to 3.5x, but boosted the first boss' stats, ironically making it one of the longest and most tiring battles in the game if you play on Unknown since the beginning (and maybe also one of the hardest, due to the lack of resources you have by that point).

The second boss fight in the game is actually considered the hardest boss fight on Unknown by most people: unless you're above Lv30, you'll hit 1 damage on every hit, when she has around 10000 Hit Points. That, and she can already use her Mystic Arte by this point on Unknown.

Have a Nice Death: If you die on a boss battle, you can view a small skit that helps you exploit the enemy's weakness.

Heroic B.S.O.D.: Luke, after he commits an act that makes everyone in the party hate him, even though he's the main character, exacerbated after he finds out he's a replica.

Further exacerbated by the fact that he had been post-hypnotically manipulated into doing it by his beloved master who also gave him a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness speech at the same time, and that his father and uncle knew that they were sending him and his party to suicide bomb a city so that they could use it as an excuse to start a World War, and that the destruction of Akzeriuth destabalized the entire continent, leading to potentially thousands more deaths. And did we mention that Luke is one of the few RPG main characters that absolutely hates killing people, had a BSOD the first time he killed someone, and still has nightmares about every person he kills?

Ion. Asch repeatedly attempts this, but never quite pulls it off. He eventually dies because he wouldn't accept a weapon from Luke, in a great aversion of Gameplay and Story Segregation.

Also, after he realizes what a complete ass he's been, Luke slowly begins to develop an inferiority complex and think the only way to redeem himself is through this. He appears to do this in the ending, but it's not made clear whether he does or not.

Hypocrite: Despite being disgusted with Luke over what happened at Akzeriuth, Anise is a traitor and has been feeding information to the Big Bad all along. There was some coercion, true, but she's not as good as she appears to be.

Anise is also the one who continues to treat other traitors no matter who they're loyal to, like Spinoza, the roughest of the party and is always the last to forgive them. Possibly out of self-hatred, since this rule applies to Anise herself. The exception is Dist, who Anise simply doesn't really respect.

Tear never shuts up about how Luke shouldn't trust Van and that he should have seen his betrayal and true nature coming. At the same time, her own loyalty to the Obviously Evil Mohs never gets addressed even after it's clear he's as responsible for the horrible things happening as much as Van.

I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: If you read Luke's journals toward the end of the game, you'll realize that he decides against telling Tear how he feels because his body is going to disintegrate soon anyway and it would just break her heart.

Idiot Hero: Luke. My God, Luke. This is Justified, Deconstructed, and Averted when you take into account the fact Luke is actually seven; he's an idiot because he really only has seven years worth of knowledge (and is expected to act 17 at minimum), this leads to a lot of grief (especially as everyone fails to properly account for his true age), and when one really considers all Luke does over the game, he's actually quite smart for his age.

Jade: You're amazingly dense, aren't you, Luke? Guy: Are you stupid? Only a child needs kindness to be blatantly obvious in order to see it. Anise: Luke. Do you actually think there's anyone in the world who'd say "yes, I'm pushing myself"? You're so dumb!

Subverted; see what happens after Akzeriuth in this scene. (only the first 55 seconds is relevant)

Forget Akzeriuth. Remember the thousands of technical infants that Luke and Asch sacrifice in order to obliterate the miasma in the second half of the game, after Dist tore a bloody swath through them in order to prevent them from sacrificing themselves in that manner in the first place? Not to mention all the Replicas that Luke and company had to have blown through in the final dungeon, or how Ion (and thus probably Sync) was only two years old.

Informed Ability: Van taught Tear the fonic hymns, and we get referenced to him using them, but we never hear him sing like Tear. He may cast Judgement while fighting, but he won't actually sing.

Innocent Innuendo: Anise's suggestion to Florian that they sleep together note Anise is thirteen years old while Florian has the body of a fourteen-year-old, he is chronologically only two years old and has the mentality of a toddler . Luke is understandably squicked by this until Anise clarifies that she means a sleepover involving the whole group.

Intergenerational Friendship: It's pointed out many times how much older Jade is than the rest of the group (particularly with Anise, of whom he's close to three times her age). Not that he wants to admit that they're friends.

Irony: in the Cheagle Woods storyline, when Luke is telling Mieu to breathe fire all over the place, Tear warns him that Mieu's doing so could cause another forest fire. Luke simply responds that, if that were to happen, it would be all Mieu's fault, disregarding the fact that he (Luke) was giving the orders. At first, this appears to be yet another example of Luke's stupidity and irresponsibility, but It becomes both this trope and a "Funny Aneurysm" Moment when Akzeriuth is destroyed.

It Gets Easier: Subverted with Luke who never gets used to killing people. Jade even mentions that he knows that Luke doesn't sleep at night, because of the nightmares he has. Played straight with Natalia though.

Luke at the start of the game qualifies as well. For a seven year old member of the highest levels of nobility with the life experience of a toddler, he's surprisingly down to Earth and his rudeness is tempered by his extreme aversion to killing and desire to protect people.

Luke, before he realizes what a complete ass he's been and gets an Important Haircut.

Sync is the game's most triumphant, unrepentant example, however. Any sympathy from his Freudian Excuse is negated by him kicking the dog at every opportunity.

Jiggle Physics: If Tear is your on-screen character, her Gag Boobs bounce when she runs. This can be noticed in certain cutscenes as well, e.g. a scene that involves Tear walking towards the screen with her entire body in clear focus.

Can be averted. If you take too long to save Ginji and the Albiore I, he really will fall to his death.

Oddly, though, the game is playing this straight at the exact same time: the entire reason you're trying to save Ginji and the Albiore I is to save the people remaining in St. Binah before it sinks, which conveniently takes long enough for the party to go halfway around the world and engage in a Fetch Quest. The anime adaptation rewrites things to make more sense: the party doesn't take part in the first-mentioned act at all, and Noelle happens to arrive at St. Binah with the Albiore Just in Time.

Plenty from villains all around; the most overt would be Sync's blow below the belt towards Anise.

Legretta's slaughter of Belkend and Sheridan's Class I and Class M tech-heads was pretty horrific too.

Kissing Cousins: Natalia and Luke. Subverted: while Luke's mother is Natalia's father's sister, Luke as you first know him from the story is actually a clone, and Natalia was adopted from another family when the real princess died in infancy. Double subversion because the two of them are royalty, meaning it's practically mandated.

Kleptomaniac Hero: There is something amusing about having Luke steal 100 gald from his parents' room right at the start of the game.

Likewise, if you equip one for the first scene with Guy will have a few extra lines of dialogue (as will Tear when he cuts it). Guy's dialogue has more if you equip Luke's bathing suit costume, mentioning his attire. These don't work if you equip Dragon Buster? or Abyss Red, though.

Laser-Guided Amnesia: Subverted in that Luke isn't really an amnesiac; he's actually a clone of the "real" Luke: Asch. The game makes it clear that clones are a complete blank slate; Guy recalls Luke having to learn to walk.

Law of Cartographical Elegance: A particularly egregious example, as part of the plot involves going to the North and South Poles... which are right next to one another when traveling on the Field, even though the cutscenes makes it clear that Aldurant is a globe.

Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When having the party run around in their bathing suits, some say that somebody must be forcing them to wear them.

Leave Behind a Pistol: Luke and Natalia, being members of royalty who are sentenced to death, are told to die by their own hands, and are given poison so they will not suffer. Thankfully, help arrives before they're forced to drink it.

Princess Natalia is the textbookexample, and to a lesser extent, so is Luke.

A bit of Gameplay and Story Segregation, as when either Natalia or Luke are actually used to make meals for the party, they're no more likely to fail at it than any other member of the party.

While Jade is a decent chef, according to skits he uses his cooking as "non-lethal" experiments on the group. It's usually mild things like putting in disliked ingredients or testing their tolerance for spiciness, but it probably wouldn't be the smartest thing to have him cook while you're in Mushroom Road.

You don't even need skits to know what Jade is like at times- look at what he adds to some of the food in the optional ingredient section, or read what he makes when it tells you; for instance, when asked the make pizza after he gets his first or second star on the recipe, he makes Potato Pizza, provided you have potatoes on hand, as they are his choice ingredient for this one. Though, this might just mean Jade has Bizarre Taste in Food.

Forced upon the party during the first trip to Absorption Gate. A platform collapses and separates the party into three pairs: Luke and Tear, Guy and Natalia, and Jade and Anise.

Happens twice more: first during the Timed Mission in the Meggiora Highlands, and again when the party attempts to warn the civilians and military as the Shurrey Hill area is about to fall. At least during these, you get to choose who goes in which party; the former has you choose between Guy and Jade, and the latter between Natalia and Jade (again).

Actually, you don't HAVE to pick between Guy and Jade- you can leave them with Tear and get three skits about being worried for Luke, and take Anise and Natalia if you want. You can still split the teams as you desire there. The latter, however, does force you to choose.

Let's You and Him Fight: Subverted in that, although Asch is working towards the same goal as the party, he hates Luke personally, and would gladly kill him if given the opportunity. To be fair, he has every reason to, thought it isn't the reason you think...

Literal Genie: Aside from his tendency to translate names out of Ancient Ispanian and say Light of the Sacred Flame when he just means Luke fon Fabre, for example, Lorelei is a well-intentioned example of this. The Score is a fairly straightforward list of historical occurrances in chronological order. For instance, the war will certainly bring prosperity to Kimlasca... until the plague kills them all. A pity that part was on the next fonstone. There are two times in the game where Lorelei saying something fairly straightforward is turned into a Cryptic Conversation because the listeners expect him to be crypic and mystical when all he's trying to do is tell them some piece of vital information in simple terms.

Loads and Loads of Loading: The load times after a battle on the world map are generally bad, but become far worse if you're in the Zao Desert. It's particularly bad in the Inista Marsh because the game treats the area as if you're still on the world map and not in an actual dungeon like any other area listed in the dungeon listing of your map. This issue was greatly improved in the 3DS version, in which load times got considerably shorter than in the PS2 version.

Locked Out of the Loop: Jade figures out early that Luke is a replica of Asch but doesn't tell him... it's not like its an important part of the Big Bad's plan or anything.

It's worse than that; everyone except Natalia is keeping some kind of secret from Luke and all the others when the game starts:

Guy has been conspiring with Van for years to kill Luke in front of his father as revenge for his own family's death at Duke Fabre's hands, although he is unaware of Van's other plans.

Anise is spying on them for Grand Maestro Mohs, reporting on all their actions, and is basically the reason the God-Generals always know where they are, because Mohs has her parents hostage so she can't disobey him.

Lost in Translation: One scene has Luke say, in regards to Anise, that "Her voice can shatter glass". Anise's English voice is significantly lower-pitched than her Japanese voice, and even though her voice actress raised the pitch of her voice a bit, it still doesn't come off as shrill.

Lost Technology: Used to make the Sephiroths, and the entirety of Yulia City. Modern-day residents of Yulia City have no idea how it even works or how to make more of it.

Anise, Arietta and Ion, despite the fact that none of them can spit it out. This game makes a kinda cruel variation: Arietta was in love with the original Ion, since it was him who protected her and taught her everything when she was separated from her monsters family. Anise, on the other hand, falls for the replica Ion, who is the only one she got to know. Of course, neither of the girls know about this.

In a skit, it is implied that, if Asch had not appeared, Luke, Tear and Natalia most probably would have ended up in the same situation.

Low-Level Advantage: If you're on a New Game Plus and you carried over your Capacity Cores, it's recommended to fight as few battles as possible until Ion gives Luke his first Capacity Core in the Cheagle Woods.

Largo is Natalia's true father. He didn't particularly care to tell his child about this, though...

Although technically, Luke has no father, Van could be considered his father because he created him. Jade could also be considered his father as he invented fomicry. Neither of them though, uttered the famous words, despite Anise attempts to invoke it with Jade.

Magic A Is Magic A: The game's physics are unusually consistent, affecting not just the overall plot but battle mechanics, cutscenes, and even character development arcs.

When Jade is fon slot sealed, his stats decrease because stats are measurements of various types of fonons and fonic power. In the same way Jade stores his spear, everyone uses fonons to enhance their abilities, growing better it with experience.

People aren't hit by friendly fonic artes because fonists can mark their allies' fon slots. The fact they can only protect a few people at a time not only justifies the entire party not participating in battle and why they can't be swapped out during the battle (the markings would need to be redone), but is actually mentioned in a cutscene, where Jade reminds Tear that she can't use an arte around that many unmarked civilians.

The scene where they discuss the nature of Lorelei and the nature of a fon sentience seems like it's just general background info and an excuse to poke fun at Luke's ignorance but a piece of information there is a Chekhov's Gun. The definition of a fonon sentience is a sentient pure clump of the fonon with the sentience's fonon frequency. And Luke is a replica, pure seventh fonon, with Lorelei's fonon frequency. Lorelei later states that Luke is another aspect of himself and this explains why replicas aren't included in the Score despite being seventh fonon: they're not under Lorelei's jurisdiction.

The entire Contamination Sidequest revolves around how Auldrant's laws of physics are as unforgiving as our own, when Jade has to come to terms with the fact that despite all his determination and genius it's simply not possible for him to save Luke any more than he can bring back Professor Nebilim.

Musical symbology is rife in this game. In the Japanese translation, "fonic artes" (magic) is rendered as "tone magic". When Jade uses his "Mystic Cage" arte, he says (in English), "Oh admonishing melody, arise in the name of the Necromancer. Mystic Cage!" And all the titles in front of Order-of-Lorelei ranks (Ionian, Locrian, etc) are all music-theory terms. And let's not forget that the "fonons" manipulated by magic are basic particles of sound.

To say nothing of the fact that the world is governed by a Score and several of the levels have giant floating music staffs in the background.

The several of the teleport pads in the Absorption Gate look like treble clefs.

Most of the Capacity Cores and shops have music-term names (Marcato is a Core while Virtuoso is a shop in Baticul, for instance). Largo is also a tempo of music.

Manchild: Luke, because of his complete amnesia (complete—he had to relearn how to eat) seven years ago. He's basically seven years old. Can be seen as a Deconstruction, as his childish acts eventually piss everybody off before he gets his Character Development. This is also Justified as he actually is seven as a replica and his amnesia is just him starting as a Blank Slate.

Here's a fun thought, Luke is technically seven years old with a mindset to match and only has the body of a seventeen year old, while Tear actually is sixteen years old. Tear knows Luke's real age and yet by the end of the game both of them love each other. Sorta weird on Luke's part, kinda creepy on Tears's part.

Might count as Gratuitous German, as "Asche" means the same and is only one letter away as well.

Also, Luke himself: the name actually does mean "Light".

Also, Sync is a clone; Largo is really big; "Vandesdelca" means "one who would seize glory"; Guy is afraid of women (gynophobic); and most of the God-Generals have musical names which ties in with the overall sonic theme of the setting.

Legretta is really quick. Legretta's name is actually an example of Spell My Name with an "S". While not incorrect, a better translation would be Regret. Kinda makes sense. May also be a Woolseyism to maintain the God-General's musical theme naming.

Natalia is a double whammy. First off, Natalia means birthday, and that comes into play when Luke finds a locket with that date inscribed on it. It's Largo's prized possession, to commemorate the birth of his daughter Meryl, who is actually Natalia. Secondly, Meryl means shining sea. Natalia birth mother committed suicide by drowning in the Sea of Baticul when her newborn daughter was taken from her to replace the original Natalia, who was stillborn.

Lorelei. Interesting to give the fonon sentience of healing the name of a singer that lured people to their deaths. The Score is literally Lorelei's memory, meaning Lorelei has to die to destroy it, according to Van, and the only way to do that is to destroy Auldrant itself. The Score is described as a tempting drug that lures people...

Many of the important place names are taken from the Kabbalahnote Grand Chokhmah, St. Binah, Daath, Chesedonia, Hod, Keterburg, Malkuth, Qliphoth. Qliphoth, for instance, represents the evil spiritual forces, while Malkuth is the lowest of the sephirot, seperating them from the Qliphoth. Malkuth literally means "Kingdom".

Another interesting one is Keterburg, because it refers to God's will to create - Keterburg is where Jade played God and created the first replica.

A Mech by Any Other Name: The enormous "dolls" Anise rides and fights with during battle. Tokunaga being the nominal mech in question.

Mercy Mode: In the game's brief stealth section, you're supposed to have your party sneak through a forest, while avoiding soldiers and guard dog patrols. If you're caught, you return to the start of the area. However, if you get caught too many times, the game will let you brute force your way through, fighting the enemies and not bothering with stealth.

In the anime, all it took was one minor scratch to his chest to make the final boss of the Absorption Gate declare himself defeated, and throw himself over the edge to (presumably) his death while giggling like a maniac. Not the case in the game, however, as it takes quite the boss fight first to defeat him there.

Same goes for Sync. Once his mask is broken (if that can be called an injury) and his identity is revealed he goes on a spiel about Cloning Blues and promptly jumps into the abyss. Keep in mind, he was kicking everyone's collective ass up to that point.

Mundane Made Awesome: Getting recipes, considering it's the only thing in the game that warrants a victory fanfare. Not even battles have a fanfare.

Musical Spoiler: During the scene at the Akzeriuth passage ring, if nothing else has so far, the soundtrack playing Van — Truth, a foreboding-sounding melody, gives the player a clue that Van's intentions are definitely not for anyone's benefit.

There's also Natalia's real name; Meryl. It originally belonged to Meryl Adenade, who taught her daughter Mint everything she knew about healing.

In Tales of Symphonia, one of the after-battle conversations was "Our weapons are love!" "Justice! And-" "...Hope." In this game, one after-battle conversation is a decidedly less moral version of that:

Spoilers here for Tales of Symphonia. There's also the unbelievably creepy replica in the Daath cathedral, who, for some reason, takes a Mythology Gag and makes it Nightmare Fuel. This one line led to a lot of Epileptic Trees, especially since it relates to what is technically Symphonia's non-canon ending.

Never My Fault: Luke absolutely refuses to accept that Akzeriuth his fault in the immediate aftermath. His eventual admittance that it was his fault, and his desire to atone for it, are major points in his Character Development.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Before the game is two-thirds over, the machinations of the Big Bad have resulted in a peace treaty between the world's two warring powers, the fixing of an ecological disaster, and the restoration of an older, better order. The main characters, representing at least one leader (or leadership-adjacent person) from Auldrant's four or five major political powers, have also become Fire-Forged Friends and are instrumental in resolving these problems. Perhaps the best illustration is the False Flag Operation mentioned above, which is shut down via nothing more or less than the Player Characters' trust in each other.

Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Of course, the party manages to solve many of the world's problems only to create new problems instead, the biggest example being when Luke sunk Akzeriuth. Most of these also result in other pseudo-kabooms.

Not Quite Dead: Dist. Dist. Dist. He really is as "tenacious as a cockroach."

Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: Used offscreen repeatedly in Malkuth to explain in part why Peony can't give the party all the help he wants to - the council is mostly made up of the same people who were on it when his father, a far more warlike ruler, was in charge just a couple of years ago, and Malkuth's internal politics haven't yet caught up to Peony's style.

Oblivious to Love: Luke just never really seems to put the pieces together that Tear feels the same way.

Obvious Beta: Surprisingly, the initial release in Japan. Because it was rushed to come out at the end of 2005, it had an abnormal amount of cut content. Among them, Guy and Natalia's second mystic artes as well as cut-ins for the mystic artes used by the cameo team. (Yet ironically they still use them.)

Off-Model: When Malkuth and Kimlasca go to war, there's a fairly lengthy cutscene showing the bloodshed. The problem? All of the soldiers are ridiculously off model, something that never occurs before or after that moment.

Older Than They Look: Though all the characters are at seemingly young ages, it was stated in the game that a year on their planet is 765 days long, meaning that everyone is actually twice as old by our time. More than likely though, the humans of that planet age at a slower rate than we do, evening it out.

Omnicidal Maniac: The Big Bad intends to destroy the whole planet so that no trace of the Score remains, before replacing it with a Replica.

One-Winged Angel: Downplayed, though Van grows a literal wing on his left arm. His form is relatively similar to his human form.

Only Known by Their Nickname: Very common, especially with the God-Generals. Only Sync and Arietta don't have an identity they hide. In Arietta's case, since her (human) parents died when Hod fell and she was raised by ligers afterwards, whatever her name was before that is lost. Nicknames are also used to conceal certain identities like Guy using the short form of Gailardia as his alias. There's also a very twisted, somewhat Fridge Brilliance example Luke, as a replica with Lorelei's fonic signature, is actually the Other Lorelei. In other words, his name isn't really "Luke" - that's Asch, the original - but is actually "Lorelei" technically. He's never called that of course.

Overrated and Underleveled: Jade and Asch. Both are Justified: in Jade's case when he first joins the group he's as impressive as his reputation. Then he gets hit by a fon slot seal and spends a good chunk of time unlocking it. While in Asch's case investigating things will reveal he's going through the Big Bang and thus being weakened as a result of his slow death from that.

Physical God: Luke and Asch possess the power of Lorelei, a power that can destroy anything, teleport the user, control people's minds, heal, ressurrect the dead, control the future, etc. According to the game's physics and Lorelei himself, Luke is also a physical incarnation of Lorelei, making him the setting's real Crystal Dragon Jesus.

Luke is particularly guilty of this (even Jade says that he should have told them when it came to what happened at Akzeriuth, suggesting that they could have evacuated the town first). That said Luke had no reason to confide in them and Van had cleverly manipulated Luke into that position over his entire life.

Though this is used just as often against Luke to keep certain information from the player. This leads to several maddening instances in which the other characters berate him for not knowing anything while intentionally keeping him out of the loop.

Also, whether he understood it or not, Luke should have known better than to hold back any messages from Lorelei. They could have had a whole extra month to foil the Van's plans during the second half of the game, if he had told anyone in his party about the message he received about "The One Who Would Seize Glory." Though it's a mystery as to why Lorelei didn't just say Van or even Vandesdelca, since it is quite capable of using proper names...

Anise. True, Mohs had her up against the wall, but she kept the entire situation hidden from the group, and Ion ended up being killed as a result. They could have very likely saved both her parents and Ion, who she was supposed to be guarding in the first place.

Luke hides that he's dying which he wouldn't be if Asch hadn't done the same earlier, admitting he wanted to go to the Tower of Rem because he was dying anyway. Asch hiding that he was dying starts to kill Luke. Of course, it's then subverted by the Contamination Sidequests, since Asch would have survived and Luke died no matter what happened at the Tower.

Things would have gone differently very early on if Luke and Tear had specified what city they wanted a stagecoach ride to instead of asking for passage to "the capital" (since they didn't realize what country they were in). It's also indicated that it might be a bad idea to indicate that they're from Kimlasca, though.

Power Limiter: Jade has 2. The fon slot seal Largo used on him early-on in the game to even out his level with the other characters, and through an easy to miss sidequest, you learn that his glasses prevent the fonons gathered in his eyes from destroying himself and whatever happens to be nearby. The first one justifies his leveling up as him slowly breaking the seal by himself, which is described as breaking a lock whose combination is constantly changing while underwater wrapped in chains and weights. It's implied that he's actually grown stronger over the course of the story, as the skit where he finally breaks the seal doesn't appear until around level 50; Jade was level 45 when the seal was applied.

Pride Before a Fall: Before Luke's Heroic B.S.O.D. and quite literally with the fall of Akzeriuth. The idea of being an ambassador and becoming a hero went to his head, and he became increasingly stubborn and bossy, until one of his unilateral decisions has disastrous consequences.

The Promise: Subverted and Deconstructed by Asch who pointedly states that he thinks making promises is meaningless. Unfortunately, he never keeps his promise to Luke at the end of the game.

The Psycho Rangers: Though they may just be Evil Counterparts, The God-Generals are all related to a member of the main party, and often use the same skills and abilities. Luke/Asch, Tear/Legretta, Anise/Arietta, Jade/Dist, Natalia/Largo, Guy and Ion/Sync.

Guy and Sync aren't counterparts, although the game spends a lot of time making one think that is going to be the case. He singles out Guy for his curse-slot, and Guy is the first one to see the face under the mask; his shocked reaction makes one think Guy knows him. Both turn out to be red herrings. Rather, Sync has more in line with Ion and Anise. His Akashic Torment attack is the same as Ion's Daathic Fonic Arte (seen in Luke's Radiant Howl extension), and a number of his hand-to-hand artes mirror Anise's moves, including Stone Dragon Ascent. Meanwhile, his role in-story has him mirror Ion and antagonize Anise.

Meanwhile, we find out that the actual counterpart to Guy is Van himself. Both are survivors of Hod who swore revenge, but Guy, having let go of his hatred, represents a rejection of everything Van wants to achieve.

Arietta and Luke also can be compared to each other. Both have Van as their father figure and have blind trust towards him, not to mention a rather limited view of the world that, when challenged, they lash out at the one challenging it. But while Van continues to make use of Arietta's unique talents, he discards Luke; Luke, meanwhile, manages to somewhat get past his dependency of Van to fight him and develops into a more reasonable person willing to change while Arietta never breaks free.

Fortunately, quirky only in name. Every battle against the God-Generals is usually the toughest boss at that point in the game, and the last battles are usually tugging on some heart strings somewhere.

Luke is constantly Locked Out of the Loop by everyone, except for his mentor Van. Instead of this leaving Luke confused but focused on moving ahead on the journey, it makes him extremely angry because the others keep treating him like The Load. This makes it easy for Van to exploit Luke to cause the destruction of Akzeriuth, since Van was Genre Savvy enough to use Luke's trust to make himself seem like he cared for him.

The entire main story is a case of it. Yulia gifted mankind with the Score to prevent mankind from destroying itself. However people instead saw the Score as absolute and become focused on making sure the Score was fulfilled, since if history is already predetermined, whats the point trying to alter it?

Rebellious Princess: Subverted by Natalia, who often works her world-saving duties in with the duties to her kingdom.

It was more for the bratty attitude than the aforementioned spoiler. It was mostly Jade and Anise who were the most vicious, and they backed off when it became apparent that Luke was making an effort to be a better person. Not to mention that he was carrying a HUGE amount of guilt.

Regional Bonus: The North American release included some extras the original Japanese version didn't have. The Nintendo 3DS version is based on the North American version as a result and is the first time Japanese players have access to them.

Only Nebilim fulfills the emotional aspect, though. While the Big Bad's ultimate plan might qualify, all the clones encountered during the game were created for far more pragmatic reasons than filling an emotional void.

Rescue Romance: General Frings and General Cecille's sidequest starts from this.

Rock Theme Naming: While a minor example, Jade and Nephry's names are derived from two minerals called 'jade': jadeite and nephrite. Also, Saphir is very likely taken from 'sapphire' and his last name Gneiss is a type of rock.

Royally Screwed Up: Kimlasca-Lanvaldear is riddled with incompetence. Malkuth, on the other hand, has many competent leaders, and it shows if you talk to the people of Grand Chokmah. They'll say things like, "Well, if Emperor Peony says so, then I'll believe him." People don't talk about King Ingobert like that, but they do like Natalia. In fact, every time they say something good about their country, it's something Natalia did, and she's not even the real princess. Duke Fabre and King Ingobert are both fairly incompetent for a large part of the story.

Rule of Symbolism: Just about everything in the game is named after elements of the Jewish Kabbalah and the Sephiroth (though not always translated correctly). And everything that isn't is probably Musical Theme Naming.

Rule of Three: Though you have six playable characters, three are nobles, the other three are military (insofar as a Fon Master Guardian can be considered military.) You also have three warriors and three spellcasters, three males and three females, and three groups of two in regards to origins (two Kimlascans, two Malkuthians, and two members of the Order of Lorelei). You even fight each member of the God Generals, including their leader, thrice (with the exception of Asch.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: What the Score ends up being. A lot. The most egregious example: it's implied by Lorelei in one of the final scenes that the success of Van's plan—one that was designed to avert the Score—would have been the "destruction of humanity" predicted in the original Score Of Destruction.

In the scene at Yulia's grave, Tear suspects that Eldrant is what Yulia planned all along and Van knew it from reading her journals. Without Van trying to create Eldrant, all of Auldrant would have collapsed into the miasma, it would just have taken a little longer. Eldrant would at least allow replicas to survive. That would make this an attempt at a Prophecy Twist by the maker of the prophecy. Luke reassures Tear by claiming that since Yulia was Lorelei's friend she wouldn't have done anything he didn't want, an argument that holds no water when Auldrant collapsing into miasma would have killed Lorelei anyway, so what Lorelei would have wanted was for something to live on, just as Luke soon demonstrates that he's perfectly willing to die for his friends to live on. This makes it something of an Either/Or Prophecy.

Sheltered Aristocrat: Luke, to the point of not understanding he has to pay for goods. He's never left home since the kidnapping attempt seven years ago, and since he's a replica created at that time, it means he never left home at all.

Every single one of the Anise-only accessories that change Tokunaga's appearance are a Shout-Out to something. Most are from the Tales Series, but some are from other series, such as KOS-MOS and Heihachi.

At least in the English version, one resident in St. Binah laments the fact that he "lost the election to Mc Govern."

The are are two games in the area with the Kowz and Ant Lion Men on Nam Cobanda Isle- Dragon Buster and (if you can read the Fonic Language) Zevious (there is no X in the fonic language). Xevious is the game where you hit all sorts of objects with Mieu Attack/Fire to get points.

At the Absorption Gate, the scene where Luke confronts Van while he plays an organ just before the battle is a clear shout out to Link's final confrontation with Ganondorf in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Both of these scenes bare a striking resemblance to one another and they set the mood perfectly for a final stand off against the Big Bad]].

Shut Up, Hannibal!: An epic example at the end of the game. During the final confrontation with the Big Bad, each member of the party gets a turn at proving the villain wrong. They basically prove to Van that his logic is flawed, twisted, and ultimatly hypocritical. He then concedes that they may be right, but he has gone too far down this path to turn back, then weapons are drawn and the cool music starts. They overpower him and he is forced to resort to his One-Winged Angel form. The fight is hard, but midway through, the heroes note that Van is losing control of his power while the party shows no sign of stopping (storywise at least). Finally, they push him past his limit and are able to remove the source of his power and defeat him. To sum up, they essentially pick apart his logic and reasoning (through words then violence) and reveal him for what he is: a man whose hate ultimately made him him into the thing he hated; a slave to the Score. You could say that the entire final battle is one large, epic Shut Up, Hannibal!.

Interestingly enough, Luke delivers the most prominate rebuttal just by simply being there and standing up to the Big Bad. He is also the one who pounds in the final nail by delivering the killing blow.

Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: The Kimlascan royal family is known for their red hair and green eyes. This becomes important to the plot twice. First, the Score identifies Luke by these traits. Second, the fact that Natalia is the only member of the royal family to not have these traits is used by Mohs as evidence that she is not the King's biological daughter.

Van has some of this as well, due to his his martial strength, and twisted conviction that he is doing the right thing. While he is not smug, he is somewhat arrogant. His defeat the first time at the hands of the party (particularly Luke) defiantly knocks him down a peg

Snow Means Love: During the first visit to Keterburg, the party stays at the inn and the girls talk about how romantic Keterburg is, with Ion included in the group, to further cement his status as a girl. Their options are rather limited because Luke is wondering around complaining about the cold (worring about his tummy frezing), Guy is scared of women, and Jade is, according to Ion, off walking the town with someone. (Presumably his sister, Nephry who previously thought he was dead.)

In fact, unlike the Tales' series normal Snow Means Love scene, Tales of the Abyss' takes place in a desert city.

Spoiler Opening: In the anime: Natalia joining the party, the fact that Van is a villain (implied by him showing up with other antagonists), Asch's face (he goes on as The Faceless for awhile in the show proper) and the fact that he and Luke have some kind of connection, and Luke's Important Haircut. And that's not even getting into the lyrics themselves...

The opening of the game is barely any better. Aside from showing that Natalia was a playable character, we see Luke switching between being short and longhaired.

The english manual is just as bad. It features Luke with short hair and depicted with the second Mystic Arte Lost Fon Drive shot. He's first introduced with long hair, but the Status Screen screenshots picture him with short hair and being called Luke Fone Fabre.

The japanese manual avoids all spoilers by having all the screenshots depicting Luke with long hair.

The anime also lovingly tells you exactly where certain God Generals are set to die.

Stalker with a Crush: Dist the Rose Runny Reaper spends an awful lot of his time trying to get Jade's attention.

Stealth-Based Mission: The forest outside of Grand Chokmah is a section of forced stealth. Thankfully, though, if you screw up enough, you can just choose to fight the guards.

Stupid Good: Anise's parents are a brutal example: their mindlessly obedient piety and compulsive charity lead them to give away money they don't have, putting them deeply into debt, and because they rely solely on The Score for support and never plan for the future, their fourteen-year-old daughter takes it upon herself to pull them out of debt by any means necessary. In addition to this, Anise's mother tells Arietta that Anise has returned, leading to a violent confrontation in which Anise's mother is badly injured Taking the Bullet for Ion.

Survivor Guilt: Aston, as the sole survivor of Sheridan's Class M, having been struck down and left Not Quite Dead by Van, who proceeded to kill Hencken and Cathy. He keeps himself busy in order to ward off these feelings.

Suspiciously Specific Denial: Dist pulls this by saying in his letter that the hoverdrive was certainly not in Daath by any means. Most certainly not Daath. This gets lampshaded by several characters.

Sword Almighty: The Key of Lorelei (despite the name it is a sword). It's implied, through how it's first described power wise, how Asch and Luke can pull off a hyperresonance assisted by just the Sword of Lorelei (aka one half of the completed whole) and thousands of replica lives to destroy the miasma, and how it's intimately connected to Lorelei, that Yulia could use it to pull off hyperresonances of her own. Of course, it's split in half and tossed into the core before the game starts...which makes the third arc when they need it to stop Van's plans and free Lorelei a bit difficult to pull off.

Luke's second Mystic Arte, Lost Fon Drive, involves Luke slashing the enemy about eight or nine times and then firing a massive beam of fonons at the enemy.

Guy's second Mystic Arte, Brilliant Overlord, has him slash his sword, sending twelve energy beams through the enemy before traping them in a sphere that crushes them then explodes.

Take a Third Option: The Score describes all Auldrant dissolving into miasma. There are various hints that Eldrant was Yulia's plan to allow a new world to live on instead of everyone dying. Auldrant will either be replaced by Eldrant or a big ball of miasma. Lorelei tells Luke that he never imagined Luke could find a way to prevent Auldrant's death.

Talking Is a Free Action: Typical boss fights have a lot of banter that goes on even while the characters are hitting each other.

A Taste of Power: When Jade joins during the battle with the Liger Queen, he's at level 45, whereas Luke and Tear will be lucky to be at level 6. He can one-shot anything he comes across until he's hit with the fon slot seal.

And Jade, Nephry (nephrite), and Saphir (sapphire) are named for stones, as is Jade and Saphir's military academy friend Jasper, from the Jade's Story manga.

There Are No Therapists: None whatsoever, brutally so. The short version is that the whole plot could have averted if the Big Bad had gotten therapy. For a little more detail, both Jade and Luke definitely need this as well. Especially Luke.

There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Nebilim's Fragmented End on higher difficulties. On Unknown, this Mystic Arte can hit for over 100,000 damage. The HP cap for each member of your party is only 9,999.

Naturally, Dist survives taking one of these in the face.

Nebilim also has Mystic Cage, Indignation and Big Bang, all of which usually deal well over 40,000 damage on Unknown, though these can't kill when used in you (but they do leave your whole party knocked down with 150 HP open for attacks).

Three Act Structure: Not as blatantly as its successor, but it's definitly there. Act 1 goes from the beginning to either Akzeriuth or when Luke cuts his hair, Act 2 goes from there to the Absorbtion Gate, and Act 3 begins after the Time Skip and runs to the end. Each act is marked with a change to the battle and world map music.

Asch, who insists on not working with the party, despite sharing goals. Not only is pretty clear he could never take Van, but even when look at his stats as a boss, the other God-Generals are stronger then he is. Luke tries to talk him into cooperation several times

The people of Akzeriuth. When their mining exposes and results in their town filling with poisonous miasma, they continue digging instead of simply getting as far from the town and thus the miasma as they can. What's worse, even when the protagonists show up and they reveal that a path out has been cleared, they still do this. The result? Luke and Van sink the town and the area around it into the miasma and everybody dies. The in-universe explanation is that the Score predicted it, so the Order of Lorelei was there to make sure that those who were supposed to be there on that day were, and kept them there. Furthermore, they were trapped; it's stated that Deo Pass is unpleasant territory due to monsters and the threat of rockfalls, as well as being in disrepair, and that miasma was keeping them locked in anyway. They were essentially trapped on an island surrounded by shark-infested waters without a boat.

Took a Level in Badass: Luke becomes a competent warrior and a mature person over the course of the game by adventuring.

Trademark Favorite Food: Everyone has something they favor to add in the 'extra ingredients' part of the recipes, although Jade specifically has curry itself. Guy seems fond of fish, adding it to nearly everything he can, such as spaghetti, sandwiches, pizza, and curry. He also uses fish instead of chicken for the fried chicken recipe, and is the one who specifically uses 'seafood' in rice balls. Natalia adds cheese to many dishes as her personal touch. Anise likes beef, adding it to her meat dishes. Jade seems to have some affinity for potatoes and tofu, Luke seems to favor chicken above the other meats, as well as shrimp.

Truth in Television: When Tear confronts Luke about how his fonons are separating, Luke admits that he didn't want anyone to know because he thought that everyone would treat him differently. If you think about it this is like people with terminal illnesses.

Luke and Asch exhibit separate and yet accurate portrayals of abused children who are struggling to deal with a world without their abuser's "guidance". Both of their relationships with Van reflect the kind of relationship between a child and an emotionally abusive parent.

Uncanny Valley: A rare example of when this is invoked and more worked into the story. When the mass replicas show up, people are scared, freaked out, or otherwise disturbed because Anyone would be too if say, you were at your loved one's funeral and suddenly someone who looks and sounds exactly like them shows up speaking in a Creepy Monotone and without basic social skills and is clearly not them. While this isn't exactly a player reaction to it due to the game's heavily stylized graphics, it still fits the purpose of the Uncanny Valley because the replicas look just like their dead loved ones.

Uncle Pennybags: Astor is the leader of the Chesedonia Merchant's Guild, and is very likely the richest non-noble (if not person overall) in Auldrant. He's also one of the nicest characters in the game, if a littleweird.

Underground Monkey: One of the worst offender, you will fight tons and tons of pallete swap bats, wolves, plants...

The NTSC-UC version of the game is this to the original JP version. During the conversion, the developers polished the whole game and added in several new features, including secret Mystic Artes for all the main characters.

The Nintendo 3DS version varies on how updated it is depending on region. In the Americas, it's pretty much the same game with modified graphics. For Europeans, Australians, or New Zealanders who imported the North American version due to having English as their main language or, in Europe's case outside the British Isles, having studied it as a second language, it would be the same case, though non-importers get to place it for the first time. The updates are a different experience to the Japanese than people from the United States and Canada — the above was such a step up that the upcoming 3DS version is a localisation of the American version.

Video Games and Fate: The game features an extremely detailed prophecy that dictates the game's plot, called the Score. It's always correct, and there's an entire religion built around following it. Part of the overarching story is trying to escape it, because it predicts the end of the world. The game is also extremely clever about letting the player think they've managed to Screw Destiny, only to yank it back again and reveal that they've been following the Score's path all along.

Uriah Gambit: There are heavy implications that Mohs sending Tear to Akzeriuth was to kill her, considering he knew it was to be destroyed once they got there. Both Legretta and Van attempt to save her, but ultimately Van can only tell Tear to use the second hymn to do so (which lets her save the rest). It's also implied that Jade being allowed on the mission, encouraged even, is to remove him as a threat, while Guy and Anise fall under "acceptable losses". Natalia and Ion ending up there was not in anyone's plans.

Verbal Tic: Mieu tends say "Mieu" alot even though the Sorcerer's Ring allows him to speak perfectly with the party.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: Half the villains in the game. Van in particular: he is attempting to destroy the Score because he knows that it predicts the complete destruction of humanity, and since the people of Auldrant take the Score's word as law....

Wham Episode: Several in the game, among them Luke's failed rescue attempt in Akzeriuth leading to it's destruction, finding out that Van had planned said failed attempt by manipulating Luke the entire time, Luke finding out he's nothing more than a replica that was supposed to be the scapegoat that had outlived it's usefulness once Akzeriuth was destroyed.

Tied together with Player Punch, there's also the helpful citizens of Sheridan and old folks that had given you the Albiore II being slaughtered. And that little boy who was floating on debris in the Qlipoth after Akzeriuth's destruction, stuck underneath his father's corpse and drowns in the miasma because your group can't rescue him in time. This game's point is to make you feel bad.

Wham Shot: The infamous scene where Luke and Asch first clash in the rain revealing they have the exact same features and look completely identical minus minor cosmetic details. Though it's not revealed until later just what it means, it's at that point that both in universe and out that people realize there is a lot more going on and nothing is exactly what it seems in regards to those two.

What Happened To Tear's Pendant?: In the first episode of the anime, Tear offers her pendant as payment for boarding a stagecoach. She does it with a very sad look on her face, stating that it was a very precious possession to her, but the pendant never appears nor is mentioned again in the anime. In the game, however we learn that it was a memento from her late mother, and there's a complete side quest in which Luke recovers it for her.

Really, the entire party has their moments. Anise betrays the party more than once, Jade knows everything that's happening in the plot and purposefully withholds information, Guy and Natalia both abandoning Luke in the Qliphoth when they were supposed to be his friends, and Tear trying to kill her brother, though you eventually realize that she has a good reason for trying to do so.

Wing Dinglish: The Fonic Language. Weirdly, at least once it's in Spanish rather than English ('El Cilion', which is odd because Elion is the owner of the shop. Possibly makes him an example of Known Only by Their Nickname). You can actually download the Fonic language as a font.

With Friends Like These...: Let's recap the truthworthiness of the party from the perspective of Luke by the time they reach Akzeriuth: a strange woman who tried to kill his beloved teacher and won't tell him why while openly working for and defending the honor of a guy who seems to have Big Bad written all over him, a smartass who constantly insults him, his best friend who trusts Van explictedly but originally just wanted to get revenge on Luke's family, a spacy kid, a creepy gold digger, a disliked childhood friend who literally blackmails her way into the party... That's not to mention that Guy was completely unaware that his best friend growing up was being used for horrific experiments and so much more.

With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: After a fonic glyph is used to grant Mohs the ability to control the seventh fonon despite not being a seventh fonist, things don't turn out quite right and he completely loses his mind.

Worthy Opponent: Largo says that Luke is his before the final battle against him.

Writers Cannot Do Math: Extra stuff you can read in Daath and Baticul will tell you extra information about Auldrant. One of these books will tell you that there are 765 days in a year on Auldrant spread out over 13 months. However, you're also told that twelve of those months have 58 days, and there's one month with 60 days. This makes 756 days in a year, not 765. 765 could be considered a typo if it weren't Namco's Creator Thumbprint, as "765" can be read as "na-mu-ko" ("Namco"), making it fall squarely in this trope. Also, the two dates you're given are not possible within the same year, if you try write out the calendar (with or without the unaccounted for nine days)

Wutai: Despite its architecture bearing more occidental features, few Japanese type weapons, like the Katana and the Hamayumi, are said to have been made exclusively on the fallen island nation of Hod. Guy's Sigmund Style of swordsmanship also somewhat exemplifies this as well, as his style appears to prefer backswords and agility like samurai.

You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Everybody does this for Luke past a certain point, as after finding out he's Asch's clone he develops a massive inferiority complex. Some instances are absolutely heartwarming, including when Jade admits he's learned a lot about humanity by watching Luke grow, or any of the dozens of time Guy declares his Undying Loyalty to Luke, damn the fact that Luke's a replica. And some examples are more heartbreaking, including when Asch, of all people, yells at him for putting himself down all the time.

Believed by most of the world. Although it emerges that it's possible to Screw Destiny, this later changes when it is revealed that everything is guided by the planet's memory. But by the end, they manage to Screw Destiny anyway. Another noteworthy example is that the Score said Fon Master Ion was supposed to die, and the original thought that creating copies would defy the Score. He was wrong.

On the other hand, Van unintentionally subverted this by creating Luke, who was supposed to take the original's place in dying at Akzeriuth. Both the original and the clone survived the incident, in contradiction to the Score. The party later points this out to Van in an attempt to convince him that the Score can be defeated, Van merely passed it off as an insignificant detail.

And then we have the Tower of Rem. The place was originally a mining city like Akzeriuth, and Asch planned to sacrifice himself there, while Luke was trying to take his place. Both survived again. Partially, at least.

Luke completely defies this at the end as he successfully destroys the Score and frees the world.

Youngest Child Wins: Tear makes Van vulnerable to the killing blow using a lullaby he taught her as a child.

Luke vs. Asch.

Your Princess Is in Another Castle: The part just before the Absorption Gate dungeon has "Ending" written all over it, you apparently kill the God-Generals, the Absorption Gate itself seems like The Very Definitely Final Dungeon... And then, when you're watching the supposedly final cutscene, you see a completely new area of the dungeon, with a treasure chest in it, just to make it clear that you're going to be able to go there. There's actually a bit of Foreshadowing if you look carefully - if you bring up the map in the Qlipoth, there's this area in a corner of the map that appears to have not sank into it. When you go there, you find that it's got a landmark that you can't enter yet. Even more apparent in the 3DS version, since the the map can be perpetually open on the bottom screen.

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